


Village Gossip

by kindkit



Category: The Fast Show
Genre: Age Difference, Canon Gay Character, Canon Gay Relationship, Class Issues, Drabble Collection, M/M, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-21
Updated: 2014-07-21
Packaged: 2018-02-09 21:16:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1998123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kindkit/pseuds/kindkit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ten things people have said about Ted and Ralph.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Village Gossip

**Author's Note:**

> Ted never gets a surname in canon, but he needed one for this fic. Also, where canon is contradictory (about whether Ralph is Mr. Mayhew or Lord Mayhew, for example) I've gone for whichever version suited me best.

I.

Young Mr. Ralph's mad about Ted O'Connor. Poor little sprite, with a father like Mr. Mayhew it's no wonder he toddles like a puppy after the only man who speaks a kind word to him. 

When he's six years old he gives Ted a fistful of stealthily picked roses and says, "I love you." Mrs. Ted, who sees from her front garden, means no harm when she tells her friends; Mr. Ralph is a darling boy, that's all.

When word gets back to Mr. Mayhew, Ralph's not allowed near Ted all summer, and come autumn he's sent away to school.

 

II.

Ted O'Connor loves that boy like a son. He's always talking about him even after he has kids of his own: three daughters he dotes on, but never a boy, and every man wants a son. Well, every man except Mr. Mayhew.

Only something changes when Mr. Ralph is fifteen or thereabouts. Ted stops talking about him. Stops talking _to_ him, Mrs. Ted says, stops looking him in the eye, and even at home he's moody and silent.

Well, people say, it was bound to happen. Mr. Ralph will be the squire one day, and Ted's nothing but a gardener. 

 

III. 

Young Mr. Mayhew's a bit soft in the head. All those posh schools, but an agricultural college was the best he could do, and then he had to leave. 

Everyone thinks he'll sell up and run wild after his father dies, but he stays on in the old place as poor and as quiet as a church mouse. Never takes a holiday, hardly shows his face in town except for the supermarket every week. He's still dogging Ted O'Connor's footsteps, though, and he must be twenty-five now.

Barmy, a lot of people call him, but never where Ted can hear.

 

IV.

Mr. Mayhew's a queer. That's what one of the big boys tells Tessa O'Connor on the school playground. Mr. Mayhew's a queer and everyone knows he fancies your dad, so your dad must be a queer too.

Tessa's a girl who thinks before she acts, so instead of crying or kicking him in the shins, she goes home and asks her father what a queer is.

She never forgets how strange he looks before he answers, like he's bitten an apple and swallowed half a worm. 

It's a bad word, he tells her, and she's not to say it again.

 

V. 

Ted's bound to crack him on the head with a spade one of these days, say the men in the pub. It's more than any man could stand, a pansy fluttering his eyelashes at you all day. Saying things, or maybe trying it on. Mr. Mayhew may seem a quiet sort of man, but he's a poof, and that's what they're like.

Not that Ted ever complains about him. He shuts up anybody who calls Mr. Mayhew a queer, and gets bloody angry if they keep on. 

Well of course he does. Must be embarrassing, working for one of them.

 

VI.

Ted O'Connor knows which side his bread is buttered on. This is something else the men in the pub say. Mr. Mayhew will never make _him_ redundant. A job for life, in this economy. There's the cottage, too, and God knows what Mayhew pays him but he's never short of a few quid.

What Ted puts up with to get it, though, that's no bargain.

Ted's got the soul of a slave, says Joe Betterton when he's not getting angry about Thatcher.

Or maybe, the younger men whisper with nudges and laughs, maybe Ted _likes_ Mr. Mayhew running after him. 

 

VII.

Ted drove her off somehow, that woman Mr. Mayhew married. He may say she was Cliff Carter's sister, but if that was true, Carter would own the estate by now, wouldn't he?

No, Ted just didn't want her turfing him out. He never did like her. He scowled and looked miserable the whole time she was around, and he cheered up quick once she was gone.

Mr. Mayhew didn't seem heartbroken for long, either. Strange he wanted to get married, when he never looked twice at a woman before.

Whoever his wife really was, maybe she had a lucky escape.

 

VIII.

Ted'll marry again. He's an old-fashioned sort of man who needs a wife to look after him. And even if he's no Hugh Grant, most of the single village women between 40 and 60 are putting on their prettiest dresses and bringing him seed cakes and pots of soup. There's a lot to be said for a steady man with a good job and a nice little house, even if you would get Mr. Mayhew into the bargain. 

Ted's started saying no to the food, but that won't last. There's bound to be a new Mrs. Ted before too long.

 

IX. 

They're living together. Ted and Mr. Mayhew are living together. Mrs. Jenkins, who cleans the big house, says she's sure Mr. Mayhew is sleeping down at the cottage. With Ted.

Everybody knew about Mr. Mayhew, but who'd have imagined it of Ted? People joked, but they never meant it.

It can't be true, some say. The big house is falling to bits, so maybe Ted lets Mr. Mayhew have his spare room. Mr. Mayhew does seem happy, but then, he would.

When Mr. Mayhew signs up for a "Cooking for Two" class at the WI, though, there's no more doubt.

 

X. 

It won't last. How can it last? The squire and the gardener, with twenty years between them. And of course Ted's not really that way. He was curious, maybe, wanted to try a bit of the other. It happens to some men and doesn't mean anything.

One day Ted and Mr. Mayhew come into the supermarket together. They shop together. They stand together at the meat counter and decide between chicken and lamb. Mr. Mayhew says something and Ted smiles at him, a smile with a glow to it, a shine.

Ah, well. At least it's something to talk about.


End file.
